Solid ink or phase change ink printers conventionally receive ink in a solid form, either as pellets or as ink sticks. The solid ink pellets or ink sticks are typically inserted through an insertion opening of an ink loader for the printer, and the ink sticks are pushed or slid along the feed channel by a feed mechanism and/or gravity toward a heater plate in the heater assembly. The heater plate melts the solid ink impinging on the plate into a liquid that is delivered to a melt reservoir.
The melt reservoir is configured to maintain a quantity of melted ink in liquid or melted form and to communicate the melted ink to one or more printheads as needed. Thermal energy is applied to the melt reservoir to maintain the phase change ink stored therein at a substantially constant temperature which is above the freezing point, or solidification point, of the melted phase change ink. One issue faced in maintaining the melt reservoirs of a phase change ink printer at the melted ink temperature is heat loss. Heat loss from the melt reservoir requires more thermal energy input to the reservoirs to maintain the ink at the melted ink temperature which, in turn, increases the energy consumption of the printer.